


Elements

by scribblemoose



Series: Merlin Missing Scenes Fics [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-22
Updated: 2010-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemoose/pseuds/scribblemoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place after Episode 1.03 'The Mark of Nimueh'. Merlin explores his magic a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elements

So. Elements, then.

Merlin sat on the floor, brushing the dust off his hands. He'd come to one of the smaller caves deep under Camelot, where no-one would find him. Gaius thought he was running errands for Arthur, Arthur thought he was running errands for Gaius and for the next half hour, at least, that meant Merlin could come down here and work on his magic undisturbed.

He couldn't wait to get started. When he'd wrapped the wind around Arthur's fire to defeat the Avank that afternoon, something had stirred deep inside him; something more than instinct, more than magic, even. Something ancient and profound, something rooted in the earth itself.

Merlin got the things he'd brought out of his bag, and set them out on the ground in front of him. A fat candle, a flask of water, a small dish and a bag of dirt from the herb garden. His magic book.

Fire, water, earth. Air from the cool draught flowing into the cave from the passage beyond.

And magic.

So far, Merlin's study of magic had been a bit ad hoc, to say the least. He'd explored specific spells, either to save time or avert disaster of various kinds, but he hadn't learned much about what magic _was_; about the earth and the energies that bound everything together. Or about the Old Religion, whatever that actually was. But he had a real, deep hunger to find out, and that hunger was growing every day.

Merlin lit the candle, uncorked the water flask and tipped the dirt out into the dish. He reached out his hand, not to channel his magic but to _feel_; to test the character of each substance, it's own unique power.

In the instant he'd cast his spell to defeat the Avank, Merlin had caught a glimpse of the world in a way he'd never seen it before: everything connected and rooted and formed from the same stuff in different shapes; the basic alchemy of life and time.

_Elements_, pulled together and given form by this something else, this something that tasted like power and magic but wasn't, quite, either.

The one thing that didn't fit was the Avank itself. The Avank was, more than anything, _wrong_. It was to nature what a crude scratch in a wall is to the carvings of a craft master, with an extra layer of evil on top. It was incomplete, a patched-together thing, out of step, out of harmony with the earth.

If Merlin could work out what made the difference, what that indefinable defining something was, he knew it would be a huge breakthrough in understanding his magic.

Merlin felt his way through the four elements in turn, testing each with methodical diligence that would have made Gaius proud. Identifying how they differed; how they interacted; how they could each defeat the other, not one of them invincible. Water quenched fire; earth smothered it; wind extinguished it. Fire turned water to harmless clouds; sucked wind to itself and travelled through it; turned earth to a puddle of molten rock. And so on.

He couldn't explain the Avank. He tried one small experiment with water and earth and a spell from the book, but he gave up halfway through, repulsed and nauseated at the sheer wrongness of it.

There was something missing; it wasn't magic, and magic could only be a poor imitation of it, as the Avank proved. What was missing from the crude combination of elements, even in Nimueh's skilled creation, was life.

And obviously, thought Merlin, there was no magic powerful enough to create life itself.

But even as the thought passed through Merlin's mind, he challenged it. Perhaps, if he closed his eyes and concentrated, perhaps if he reached deep inside himself to find that place where what made Merlin Merlin was; the golden thread holding him together, making him think and move and live and...

Merlin's eyes flew open and he pushed to his feet, gasping breath into his lungs. His knees felt weak; his head span.

"I'm sorry!" Not sure who he was talking to, exactly - maybe his Mother, maybe Gaius, maybe the dragon - maybe the universe itself. It didn't matter. He knew he'd nearly touched something that he should never, ever touch. He'd almost crossed a line and the fact that he could have done it terrified him almost as much as how wrong it felt.

With shaking hands, Merlin collected up what remained of the things he'd brought - his spell book, a stub of candle, an empty flask and a dish containing a lump of warm, gooey, steaming rock - and put them back into his bag. He hurried from the cave, breaking into a run as he hit the corridor, slowing only when he got to the stairs that led up to the castle.

He found his way back to Gaius's chambers and stood by the window in a shaft of sunlight, grounding himself. It felt better here, surrounded by familiar things. Safe.

He stared out of the window for a long time, letting the world settle back into the right place; bringing his focus back from the tiny bits of things that made up the bigger things; drawing back through layers of meaning and magic and the essence of life that bound them together to the reality of his world. Stone. Wall. Water. Lake. Glass. Window.

"Merlin."

Merlin spun around, guilty for no reason he could explain, even as he registered the voice that had called his name.

"Arthur," he said, weakly.

Arthur stood at his side, arms crossed loosely across his chest. He was wearing the black shirt again. Merlin's favourite.

"Half an hour," said Arthur, as if Merlin was an idiot. "You said you'd be half an hour."

Merlin's gaze flicked to the window again, and registered how low the sun was. He must have been in the caves for hours: it was nearly dark. "Sorry. It took longer than I thought. What I was doing. For Gaius."

"I don't mind you helping him out, but you are my servant, Merlin. I expect you to manage your duties for me as well."

"Yes. Um. Of course."

"So, now we've cleared that up....?" Arthur said, expectantly, and Merlin remembered. Armour; laundry; stables. The usual.

"I'll get started, then," Merlin said.

Arthur looked out at the setting sun. "I'll be eating with my father," he said. "He wants a full report on the Avank, but..."

"Yes?"

"I think my jacket got a bit singed today. Make sure you're in my rooms after dinner so you can check it over, okay?"

Merlin failed to suppress a smirk. "Yes, Sire."

Arthur gave him the tiniest of smirks in return. "Now, get to work, Merlin. My armour really is in a dreadful state."

Merlin watched Arthur leave, still grinning to himself. Of course looking after Arthur was hard work and incredibly annoying a lot of the time. But it had its perks.

And Merlin realised in that moment, perhaps for the first time, in an odd kind of way it kept him out of trouble, too.

Merlin hid the contents of his bag under the bed in his room, picked up his polishing cloths and went to work.

_~fin~_


End file.
